


itches

by squidgirlfriends



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, sorry this is bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 21:58:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidgirlfriends/pseuds/squidgirlfriends
Summary: He misses Hajime’s touch, the soft whispering in his ear when everything was okay and soft and sweet, when all they had to worry about were midterm exams and when they’d first get to swim in the lake that summer. He misses strong, warm arms surrounding him, a rhythmic beating heart against his ear, and he misses warmth, what is warmth? All he feels is cold.





	itches

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd emotion dump that probably has 100000 mistakes but i don't have enough energy to care
> 
> ill probably delete/orphan this later

  He scratches at his hands until they turn red and the top layer of skin starts to peel. It only itches until it hurts, and it only hurts until it doesn’t anymore.

 He should be happy, normally the smell of freshly-bloomed honeysuckle makes him feel so at home, but now it does nothing. His eyes are stuck on the car outside, in the driveway. The silver sedan that probably cost more than their entire house.

 His limbs are shaky, he can barely stand. He can barely think. It’s one and full inside him, the pain. Unbearable, yet he’s still breathing. How? How is he still?

 There’s a knock at the front door, and he jumps. His sister runs up to her bedroom. He feels like he’s three years old again, frightened, cowering behind his mother’s legs.

  _He wasn’t supposed to come back. He made my mother a_ promise _…_

 His mother, her expression hard like stone, she walks to the door, and pulls it open. She isn’t sure whether to be angry or sad or dead. The man stares at her, an empty smile on his face.

 His stomach does backflips, and suddenly, it’s impossible to _breathe_ —

 He only feels that hand slap against his cheek, biting and not containing any warmth in the least. That hand, now resting on the doorknob. His father _slapped_ him, and he still can’t let it go. It wasn’t the first time, back then, it definitely was not, but it was the one that hurt the most.

_You aren’t supposed to be like that, you filthy excuse for_ —

 It’s like drowning, and he cannot breathe anymore, and he cannot stand, so he falls, and his arms itch all the way up to his shoulders and he cannot _do_ this anymore—

He can only crawl backwards, he can only struggle in silence, don’t let him see you, you can’t let him see you. He squeezes his eyes shut. He misses Hajime, he _misses_ him more than he’s ever felt anything in his entire life. It hurts, it’s a physical pain that he cannot shake. Too much, it’s too much—

  _“I’m staying here this week.”_

 And that’s it. No asking if it’s alright, no asking whether or not they cared. That was just it. All the way up his sides, all over his cheeks and on his nose and fingers, it itches, terribly.

 He misses Hajime’s touch, the soft whispering in his ear when everything was okay and soft and sweet, when all they had to worry about were midterm exams and when they’d first get to swim in the lake that summer. He misses strong, warm arms surrounding him, a rhythmic beating heart against his ear, and he misses warmth, what is warmth? All he feels is cold.

 His mother speaks, but he can’t hear. He only hears ringing, loud and piercing and hurting and everything is too much—

He gasps, and he can breathe, but only for a precious moment. Only a precious moment, before he loses himself to dark.

 

-

 

 School is difficult, he can’t hear anything the teachers say. He can’t hear his own heartbeat. People speak to him, girls try to get his attention, but he’s deaf to them. In shock, they call it. Floating, he calls it. He’s too light to think the way he used to, but he’s too heavy to walk properly. His emotions are wobbly. Reminders are everywhere, in the people, the way they talk, the way they laugh.

 He didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before, his mind a bit preoccupied with the extra person that so obviously overstayed his welcome. He was aware of every little sound, every little movement, whether it be an insect’s legs, or the sleep-breathing of his sister, who pulled a sleeping bag into his room wordlessly and went to sleep right next to his futon.  He didn’t tell her to leave, he would rather not be alone that night.

 Swallowing makes his throat hurt now, and even though his stomach growls with hunger, he can’t bring himself to eat the messy lunch he packed himself that morning. He plods up to the roof,  every stair another mountain, and he’s wheezing as he reaches the top, where he used to go up the steps two by two. He doesn’t want to go back home. It isn’t really home anymore.

 It’s carbon monoxide, lulling him to death. Toxic. He can’t.

 He lets his knees buckle when he reaches Hajime, falling into his lap. Hajime… he must’ve seen the car in the driveway that morning, that morning, where he’d held tight onto Hajime’s hand and leaned heavily into his side.

 Now, he buries his head in the crook of Hajime’s neck, doesn’t wait for him to say anything. He can barely open his eyes anymore.

 Hajime’s hand moves up and down over his back soothingly. He wants to cry, but he’s wrung dry from the night before.

 “We’re going now,” Hajime whispers in his ear, and he looks up, eyes opened as wide as he can, and Hajime pulls him up, letting him climb up onto his back.

 Hajime piggybacks him off campus, to the bus stop, where he lets him lean against his shoulder and close his eyes.

 He piggybacks him back to his own house, where both his parents are working. He carries him up the stair, to his bedroom. He lets him fall back onto the bed, and pulled the school uniform off of him, throwing some old sweaters and sweatpants at him.

 Eyes closed, he pulls the sweater over his head and pulls Hajime’s comforter over his head, curling in on himself, allowing himself to melt into the comfort of the mattress. He’s surrounded by the smell of Hajime, warm and homey and kind of like the agedashi tofu his mother makes all the time.

 It makes him want to cry when Hajime leans in and presses his lips to his forehead, then the tip of his nose, so he does. And Hajime keeps kissing him, until his nose is snotty and his forehead hurts and his eyes are red and bloodshot and he’s tired of squeezing them shut. Hajime just stays near him, just strokes the pad of his thumb over his temple, whispers sweet things in his ear that he doesn’t deserve to hear.

 His eyes flutter, and Hajime is there when he falls asleep.

 When he wakes up, it’s dark. There’s a bit of light filtering in from the cracks of Hajime’s bedroom door. He smells food, and his stomach rumbles. He’s too heavy to get up. He doesn’t have enough strength to lift himself up.

 Hajime slides the door open, a plate of food in his hand. He lifts him up, into his lap, so he’s leaning his side against Hajime’s chest, because Hajime knows that he can’t move himself when he gets like this. Hajime sits back against the wall, and slowly eats the food Hajime brought for him. Hajime rocks him back and forth, slowly.

  _“I love you Tooru, I love you, you’ll be okay, I’ll always be here…”_


End file.
